The assistant chief constable of Cambridgeshire police faces a gross misconduct hearing for allegedly trying to help promote a colleague in a way that was likely to bring discredit on the police service.

Nav Malik, based at force headquarters in Huntingdon, will attend the public hearing at Wyboston Lakes on Monday.

It is expected to last five days.

Assistant Chief Constable Malik is said to have breached standards of professional behaviour in respect of honesty, integrity and discreditable conduct in relation to a Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire (BCH) tri force chief inspectors promotion process, held in two stages.

The first stage was a presentation by candidates to a panel and then an interview by a second panel chaired by ACC Malik.

Before the promotion process it is alleged ACC Malik provided informal mentoring to a candidate, referred to as police officer A.

On the morning of February 22 this year, it is said he met with interview panel members who agreed to change the wording of a question.

ACC Malik then allegedly asked another police staff member to call police officer A and tell them the four areas they needed to concentrate on for the interview.

Documents released by Cambridgeshire police say: "He told police staff member B the four areas that police officer A would be questioned on and police staff member B wrote them down."

The staff member then called the interview candidate, it is alleged, and said words to the effect that "the briefing is out".

Police staff member B said words to the effect of "are you able to take this down?" and began to list the topics for the interview process" and "indicated that 'Nav has just asked me to give you the topics'".

"Police officer A stopped police staff member B from continuing and indicated that this did not seem right. Police staff member B agreed.

"Police officer A told police staff member B to 'go back and tell ACC Malik that I didn't want to listen' and indicated that police officer A wanted to be promoted on merit."

Force paperwork alleges that ACC Malik asked police staff member B if they had made the call to police officer A who confirmed that they had but that they had not been happy and had terminated the call.

On February 23 the promotion process was ended.

ACC Malik failed to report his conduct.

Documents state: "Your conduct was, as you knew or ought to have known, dishonest and lacking in integrity."